Because the pronunciation changes during the centuries, while the writing system does not change. When the writing system is to far from the pronunciation, then there can be a spelling reform - this happened in Sweden, for instance.

Massimiliano B wrote:Because the pronunciation changes during the centuries, while the writing system does not change. When the writing system is to far from the pronunciation, then there can be a spelling reform - this happened in Sweden, for instance.

It's not true to say "the writing system does not change". It typically doesn't change as much, but smaller modifications are happening all the time.

But there are more limitations to change on a writing system than on the spoken system. Sounds can shift around a lot, but as long as the distinctions between them stay more-or-less the same, you can keep using the same symbols. That's how English was able to have a massive vowel shift without having to overhaul its orthography.

"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

Massimiliano B wrote:Because the pronunciation changes during the centuries, while the writing system does not change. When the writing system is to far from the pronunciation, then there can be a spelling reform - this happened in Sweden, for instance.

It's not true to say "the writing system does not change". It typically doesn't change as much, but smaller modifications are happening all the time.

Massimiliano B wrote:Because the pronunciation changes during the centuries, while the writing system does not change. When the writing system is to far from the pronunciation, then there can be a spelling reform - this happened in Sweden, for instance.

It's not true to say "the writing system does not change". It typically doesn't change as much, but smaller modifications are happening all the time.

I've written in summary what you have written

I disagree. Your "summary" makes it sound like writing systems only change as the result of "spelling reforms". These are actually a very recent phenomenon (since the notion of a standardised spelling is--for most languages--a very recent phenomenon). English has notably never been "reformed", but it doesn't follow from that that its spelling has nōƿiht ȝeƿended siþþan þē ealdan daȝas.

"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

I just gave a short answer...and the subject of my sentence was "writing system". It is not affected by the "smaller modifications": they do not involve the writing system, but only little parts of it. I was talking of the entire writing system. In order to involve the entire writing system, it takes a long time. If you take 200 or 300 years, the writing system does not change, but only little modifications intervene. When the distance of the writing system from the pronunciation is too big, a spelling reform is needed. This is what I meant. Basta così...ho già passato ore e ore a scrivere lunghi messaggi su questo sito... non ne ho più voglia.

For one thing I agree - Danish keeps its spelling and authenticity despite the evolution of the spoken language (just like English does). Hopefully this will continue, in spite of the fact that most of the young Danes do not give a shit about their language. Also the spoken and the written languages are already so much apart, that at this point no modification would make much sense. I mean, what would you suggest - write mätariælë instead of materiale? Just like with French - do you think anyone would go and try to do a reform just because they can't handle a very slight variation between what's written and what's pronounced, when you have ten different ways to write /ɛ/ and ten different ways to write /o/, plus a ton of consonants and endings that just stay there even though nobody has pronounced them for centuries? Nope. It's not like Swedish where pronunciation matches writing so closely that people get annoyed at the slightest discrepancy and want to write "mej" and "dom" instead of "mig" and "de/dem."

The pronunciation drove me nuts when I started learning Danish. Even nowadays I'd say that my written Danish is quite okay, but I'm really struggeling with speaking Danish because I'm pronuncing half of the words wrong.